Development of SERS substrate using phage-based magnetic template for triplex assay in sepsis diagnosis

Development of a new substrate for surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is one area of interest for the improvement of SERS performance. Herein, we introduce a new method for developing new mesoporous SERS substrates using M13 phages that display cysteine-rich peptides on the pVIII major units, which is an alternative for thiol donor using chemical modifications. Together with the SERS substrate development, and the use of the SERS technique for sepsis diagnostics is a new approach in clinical settings. The substrates were characterized and magnetized with magnetic immuno colloids made of gold-coated magnetic nanoparticles and specific antibodies. Conventionally, the SERS-tags are prepared by using gold nanoparticles and are modified with Raman dyes to immobilize specific antibodies to capture the biomarkers in the serum samples. However, in this method the SERS-tags are bound to the mesoporous substrate via antibody/antigen interactions to form clusters or layer-by-layer assemblies of SERS-tags for Raman signal enhancement. The SERS spectra showed distinct peaks for tags corresponding to three typical sepsis-specific biomarkers for diagnostics with the limit of detection values of 27 pM, 103 pM, and 78 pM for C-reactive protein (CRP), procalcitonin (PCT), and soluble triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells-1 (sTREM-1), respectively. With such an approach, SERS can be used for clinical purposes and can be improved by phage display modification rather than chemical alternatives.